Search

I decided to join a group of my favorite bloggers in their Pinterest Challenge. It started last Tuesday evening and the challenge was to do a DIY project inspired by an image found on Pinterest. And complete the project by today. After a busy weekend, I was severely doubting my time management abilities. Luckily, yesterday I was uber productive and finished my project and I’m super excited about it!!

As a reminder, here was my Pinterest Inspiration:

My challenge to myself was to take an piece of metal wall art that we already had…

..and rework it and refresh it, so I’m not bored of it anymore.

Cutting apart those *%$#* darn plates was the toughest and most time consuming part of this. And of course once I separated them, I needed to remove the stand-offs and all the rough edges. I used wire cutters, a hack saw, and a metal file for this whole process.

In addition to just reconfiguring their layout, I introduced some paint to change it up a bit. I’m actually relatively new to spray paint, so I decided to take this opportunity to experiment with a few things (some more successful than others).

I was able to make-up try a few paint techniques. The shot in the dark was taking Vaseline and applying it to the raised portion of the design before painting. After it dried, I wiped where the Vaseline was a prayed that it worked. It didn’t. Luckily I had more than enough plates so I could afford to mess up a few. If my Vaseline had maybe been less messy, it might have worked out. The technique did work in theory, but the end product was too much of a mess. Seeing how well (or not well) the spray paint was sticking to the plates did inspire me into another technique that did end up on the wall. After painting, when it was try to the touch but still tacky, I took a piece of sand paper and wiped/scraped away pieces of paint in one direction. The outcome was imperfect and a little quirky- somehow it worked.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had also purchased 5 plates to potentially add into the mix. 4 made it to the wall, and only 1 will be returned. I’m really excited to show you the outcome, so without further adieu.

Drumroll please…..

Here’s my project breakdown:

Existing metal plate art: $0

Plate hangers: $20

4 new plates: $15

Spray paint: $12

PROJECT TOTAL: $47

I think that’s pretty good price for art of that size. What I find super exciting about my new plate art is that it isn’t a stagnant piece. I can interchange plates if I find some at tag sales, or by season, or by my mood, or to match my outfit.

Did you do a DIY project for the Pinterest Challenge? I’d love to see it! Link to it in my comments.

As someone who doesn’t care for the metal wall art I was impressed with the outcome of your project! LOVE IT! A friend wanted to give me her metal wall art but I couldn’t see it in my own home. Thanks for the inspiration. :o)

I can’t remember how I came to read this post. Started with Facebook, then Pinterest, now here. Anyways, I have the same metal plate hanging. I thought I really liked it. We had just bought a new home and there were so many empty walls. Then we hung it up and the colors were really uninspiring. The relief is cool, though. I love how you changed it up. It really looks 100% better. I imagine the separation was a bear!

Lovely! I didn’t find out about the challenge until it was too late, but now there is tons of additional inspiration. I really like what you did with these, and I might just have to undertake that project too. :D

Karen – I just loved your blog!!!! But I LOVED it so much that I started reading at 8:00am and it’s now NOON! OMG! I’ve gotten some great ideas but how am I ever going to get anything done if I keep reading all these ideas? Oh well time to turn “Murphy” (my name for my computer – as in Murphy’s Law – “Any thing that can go wrong will go wrong!”) off & get some work done. Keep on blogging.